theBIZtutor’s Ultimate Small Business Reading List: Spark Growth & Read to Succeed!

Hey there, fellow business adventurers!

Ready to level up your business game? Imagine having a secret treasure trove filled with books that can transform the way you think, strategize, and conquer the world of entrepreneurship. Buckle up because I’ve curated a golden reading list that’s your ticket to small business success!

Welcome to my handpicked collection – a treasure chest of wisdom, inspiration, and actionable insights tailored just for you, the mighty small business owner. Get ready to explore these game-changers that will ignite your entrepreneurial spirit, spark innovation, and lead you on the path to triumph in the business world. Let’s dive into these page-turners and embark on a journey of growth, learning, and business brilliance!

(The links provided here are for your convenience. I link to the titles on Amazon using my Amazon affiliate ID. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

What I’m reading right now

This is what I’m reading right now. Sometimes, you may see a textbook for a class that I’m taking. And sometimes it is a book from my backlog. Sometimes, I go on a class break and my reading speeds up to a book a week. Sometimes, I go on a trip and read a book in a weekend. And sometimes, I slow down or get stuck on a book for a month. But I’m always reading something. Here’s what I’m reading now:

Dopamine Nation

In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain . . . and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived…

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Category: Books, I’m Currently Reading

What I Just Read

Sometimes, I burn through books faster than I get around to updating this reading list. Let’s be honest, I have more fun reading than updating web pages so it could just be little procrastination too. But I don’t want you to miss out on a good recommendation so I decided to add this section and leave the last couple of books that I’ve enjoyed.

Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics: Using Microsoft Excel

This Fifth Edition of Neil J. Salkind’s Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics: Using Microsoft Excel, presents an often intimidating and difficult subject in a way that is clear, informative, and personable. Opening with an introduction to Excel, including coverage of how to use functions and formulas, this edition shows students how to…

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Category: Books, I’m Currently Reading

Nine Lies About Work

Forget what you know about the world of work You crave feedback. Your organization’s culture is the key to its success. Strategic planning is essential. Your competencies should be measured and your weaknesses shored up. Leadership is a thing. These may sound like basic truths of our work lives today. But actually, they’re lies. As…

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Category: Books, My Top Picks, The Last Book I Read

Hidden Potential

We live in a world that’s obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distance we ourselves can travel. We underestimate the range of skills that we can learn and how…

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Category: Books, My Top Picks, The Last Book I Read

My Top Picks

I’ve read a ton of great books. The following are some of my favorites in no particular order. They cover topics like ways of thinking, ways of leading, communication, organizational culture, habit building, and happiness. Some will give you processes and tactics, some will open your eyes to new strategies, some will challenge you to grow personally. I’ve been personally impacted by each of these books and have worked to implement the ideas in my life and my businesses. I hope you find a couple of gems that blow your mind.

Other book I’ve read and recommend

With such a long list of past books, not all of them made it into my top picks. But I think these are still some great books that are worth a read. There are a lot of similar topics to my top picks, but this list ended up with a lot of fun marketing books too. Other topics in this list include human resources, leadership, communication, positivity, project management, and some case studies on successful businesses of the past. Enjoy!

• The Manager’s Guide to HR: Hiring, Firing, Performance Evaluations, Documentation, Benefits, and Everything Else You Need to Know by Max Muller
• The Best Damn Sales Book Ever: 16 Rock-Solid Rules for Achieving Sales Success! by Warren Greshes
• Duct Tape Marketing Revised and Updated: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide by John Jantsch
• Guerilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business by Jay Conrad Levinson
• Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life by Gary John Bishop
• The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work by Jon Gordon
• Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson
• The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy by Jon Gordon
• Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion by George Thompson
• Do It! Marketing: 77 Instant-Action Ideas to Boost Sales, Maximize Profits, and Crush Your Competition by David Newman
• Moments of Truth by Jan Carlzon
• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
• Authentic Leadership: Courage in Action by Robert W. Terry
• Group Effectiveness in Organizations by Linda N. Jewell & H. Joseph Reitz
• The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
• Hire to Win: Manager’s Practical Guide for Attracting and Interviewing Top Talent by Tatiyana Cure
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins
• The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, Jim Huling
• Leading with Vision: The Leader’s Blueprint for Creating a Compelling Vision and Engaging the Workforce by Bonnie Hagemann, Simon Vetter, John Maketa
• Practical Strengths: Communication Styles: A CliftonStrengths® Guide for Everyday Ways by Jo Self, Jennifer Doyle Vancil
• Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans
• Managing By The Numbers: A Commonsense Guide To Understanding And Using Your Company’s Financials by Chuck Kremer, Ron Rizzuto, John Case
• How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnagie
• Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership: How to Make a Difference Regardless of Your Title, Role, or Authority by James M. Kouzes & Barry Z. Posner

Books on my reading list

And just like you, I’m always adding books to my reading list. I have come across a ton of books that look interesting to me, have been recommended to me, or are referenced in something else that I’ve read. You may see some authors show up on a few of my lists, I tend to read other works from an author when I enjoy one of their books. Some of these are already on a shelf in my office just waiting for their turn. The rest are on my Amazon wish list in case you want to get me a present.

1. 7 Rules of Power: Surprising–but True–Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career by Jeffrey Pfeffer
2. Big Potential: How Transforming the Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement, Happiness, and Well-Being by Shawn Achor
3. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
4. Blue Ocean Shift: Beyond Competing – Proven Steps to Inspire Confidence and Seize New Growth by W. Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne
5. Blue Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne
6. Bottlenecks: Aligning UX Design with User Psychology by David C. Evans
7. Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller
8. Building Moonshots: 50+ Ways To Turn Radical Ideas Into Reality by Tamara Carleton, William Cockayne
9. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras
10. Business SOS!: Eight Common Legal Mistakes Business Owners Make and How to Avoid Them by Rich Sierra Esq.
11. Conflicted: How Productive Disagreements Lead to Better Outcomes by Ian Leslie
12. Conscious Capitalism, With a New Preface by the Authors: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business by John Mackey, Rajendra Sisodia
13. Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch by Curt Coffman, Kathie Sorensen
14. Designing Your Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness at Work by Bill Burnett, Dave Evans
15. Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes Into Stepping Stones for Success by John C. Maxwell
16. From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life by Arthur C. Brooks
17. Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins, Morten T. Hansen
18. How Stella Saved the Farm: A Tale About Making Innovation Happen by Vijay Govindarajan, Chris Trimble
19. Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them by Gary Hamel, Michele Zanini
20. Inspire Integrity: Chasing an Authentic Life by Corey Ciocchetti
21. It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy, 10th Anniversary Edition by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff
22. Leadership Gold by John C. Maxwell
23. Leading Change, With a New Preface by the Author by John P. Kotter
24. Leading With Emotional Courage: How to Have Hard Conversations, Create Accountability, And Inspire Action On Your Most Important Work by Peter Bregman
25. Love and Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life by Marcus Buckingham
26. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath, Dan Heath
27. Management as a Calling: Leading Business, Serving Society by Andrew J. Hoffman
28. Management Rev Ed by Peter F. Drucker
29. MBA in a Box: Practical Ideas from the Best Brains in Business by Joel Kurtzman, Glenn Rifkin
30. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss, Tahl Raz
31. Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg, Adam Grant
32. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
33. Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence by Amy Jen Su, Muriel Maignan Wilkins
34. Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One by Jenny Blake
35. Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t by Jeffrey Pfeffer
36. Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz
37. Radical Candor: Fully Revised & Updated Edition: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott
38. Selfless: The Social Creation of “You” by Brian Lowery
39. Social Responsibilities of the Businessman by Howard R. Bowen, Jean-Pascal Gond
40. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
41. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath, Dan Heath
42. The 2-Hour Workshop Blueprint: Design Fast. Deliver Strong. Without Stress. by Leanne Hughes, Dave Foxall
43. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
44. The 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential by John C. Maxwell
45. The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower by Morra Aarons-Mele
46. The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance by Rich Diviney
47. The Ethics of Star Trek by Judy Barad Ph.D., Ed Robertson
48. The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Updated and Expanded by Michael D. Watkins
49. The First Rule of Mastery: Stop Worrying about What People Think of You by Michael Gervais PhD, Kevin Lake
50. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, 20th Anniversary Edition by Patrick Lencioni
51. The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
52. The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative by Stephen Denning
53. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
54. The Motive: Why So Many Leaders Abdicate Their Most Important Responsibilities by Patrick M. Lencioni
55. The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William N. Thorndike Jr.
56. The Power of Positive Leadership: How and Why Positive Leaders Transform Teams and Organizations and Change the World by Jon Gordon
57. The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward by Daniel H. Pink
58. The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz
59. The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership by James C. Hunter
60. The Time Between Dreams: How to Navigate Uncertainty in Your Life and Work by Carol A Vecchio
61. The Vanishing American Corporation: Navigating the Hazards of a New Economy by Gerald F. Davis
62. The Way, the Enemy, and the Key: A Boxed Set of The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy & Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday
63. The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization by Jon R. Katzenbach, Douglas K. Smith
64. The Work of Leaders: How Vision, Alignment, and Execution Will Change the Way You Lead by Julie Straw et al.
65. Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You’re Put on the Spot by Matt Abrahams
66. Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by BJ Fogg PhD
67. To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others by Daniel H. Pink
68. Together Is Better: A Little Book of Inspiration by Simon Sinek
69. Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek by Manu Saadia
70. When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron
71. You Owe You: Ignite Your Power, Your Purpose, and Your Why by Eric Thomas PhD, Chris Paul

Congratulations, fellow business champions, for reaching the end of this treasure trove of knowledge! Now armed with these incredible reads, you’re all set to embark on a thrilling adventure of business mastery and growth.

But remember, reading alone won’t unleash the magic; it’s the application of these insights that transforms businesses. So, pick up these books, flip through their pages, absorb the wisdom within, and most importantly, take action!

Let these books be your guiding stars, illuminating the path toward innovation, strategy, and success. Share your learnings, exchange ideas, and embrace the journey. Because in the world of business, every page turned, every idea sparked, and every action taken brings you closer to your goals.

So, here’s to your entrepreneurial journey! May these books fuel your passion, expand your horizons, and empower you to conquer challenges and celebrate triumphs. Go forth, thrive, and write your own remarkable success story!

So long, and thanks for all the fish!